Dear SUA Community,
I hope that you are having a good week so far and enjoying the fall weather!
Today we have a “guest columnist” for the newsletter, Rachel Kemper, who serves as the Senior Director of Service Education and Global Education. In the upcoming weeks our entire school will be engaged in our annual schoolwide service project called D.R.I.V.E. We want you to be aware of this important service project, which brings our community together to put our Ursuline values into action and serve those in need.
The foundress of the Ursuline order, St. Angela Merici, stated, "Reflect that, in reality, you have a greater need to serve the poor than they have of your service.”
Two of our Ursuline Core Values are Christian Service and the Development of the Whole Person. It is with the above quote, along with these core values, that each year we support local food pantries that help vulnerable people in our community who struggle with food insecurity.
Food insecurity means not knowing where your next meal is coming from. Hunger in Cincinnati is an ongoing problem. According to the Freestore Foodbank, across Hamilton County, more than 120,000 households experience food insecurity, which has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Over half of these households are above the threshold for temporary government assistance, which means these folks are most likely the working poor who are employed and trying to make ends meet for their families but still have concerns about where their next meal will come from. Additionally, 82,270 children and teens in the Tri-State area are food insecure.
So, starting this week and continuing for the next two weeks (from October 27 until November 7), we will be holding our Saint Ursula Academy Community D.R.I.V.E. and are asking your daughters to be part of the solution for combating hunger in our region!
D.R.I.V.E. stands for Donate, Respond, Invest, Value, and Educate. We will have an assembly on 10/23 to kick off this school-wide donation drive and educate our school community about the agencies we will support. They are:
We will collect both shelf-stable food and personal care items. Did you know that SNAP benefits cannot be used to purchase personal care products? This has a big impact on our neighbors in need.
All donated items will be collected by grade level in our Keller Student Center. We are doing a big push for students to trick-or-treat for donations over Halloween weekend!
Our goal is for each grade to fill at least five large donation barrels! That means we will fill at least 20 barrels as a school! To help students promote, HERE is a flyer we have asked students to post on neighborhood Facebook pages or pass out to neighbors to get the word out about this D.R.I.V.E. In addition, we have given them THIS sample email to send to family and friends.
The D.R.I.V.E Kick-Off is this Thursday with a school-wide assembly. We appreciate all of the ways that you will encourage and support your daughter to make an impact right here in our local community. Each year it is wonderful for our students to see what they can accomplish by coming together as a sisterhood, united in our Ursuline values, to make a real difference for those in need.
Go Bulldogs!
Kathy
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